From SAS to Blood Diamond Wars

by Ross, Hamish

  They flew back to base, the rest of the day was theirs. Before they started celebrating, they got a preliminary account of the casualties: of the West Side Boys, 25 dead and 17 captured, including their leader Foday Kallay; British forces suffered one dead and (at this stage it was thought) 8 wounded. Fred noted it up, ‘Regret very much the death.’ Then they celebrated the success of the operation all day. Fred’s evaluation was as follows,

  Operation Barras once again demonstrated not only the professionalism and courage of the British forces but also the determination to achieve the impossible through the 7 Ps (Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss- Poor Performance!)

  Final death count of rebels was higher. The group was shattered. However, this operation had perhaps a greater psychological impact on the rebels throughout the country. Britain had the resolve to risk its soldiers’ lives and the capability to attack any rebel stronghold.

  After the raid, it was not a case of business as usual for Fred; there was some follow-up to it. On 12 September, he was briefed on the operation, and wrote in his diary that he had been ‘very proud of their success.’ The same evening, he had a drink with Stefan Cajrell, a young Swede, who worked for the UN in logistics, and one or two of the SAS raiders; he learned that the British soldier who had been killed in the operation was to be buried at Hereford. Almost immediately, post-operation activities began, and Fred was in the Mi-24, flying over the areas that had been attacked, dropping leaflets for the rump of the West Side Boys who were still in the areas with their families. This too was part of a comprehensive anti-insurgency strategy: after the fist of steel, a psychological operation. One leaflet contained an image repeated of Foday Kallay, leader of the West Side Boys. He had been captured, not with weapon in hand but hiding among the dead, as the raiders checked them over. The left of the two images shows him from chest up, in a trendy, long sleeve Calvin Klein T shirt; the right image is a close-in shot. He looks rested, rather placid and anything but a humiliated PoW. The leaftlet’s heading reads, West Siders … Where is Kallay now? Then alongside the images the statement You Fought – He Hid. And underneath the images the message, He is safe now/ Why should you still fight?/ The British-trained SLA is coming/ Hand in your weapons and you will be safe. So it was a reassuring communication. Become part of the Disarmament, Demobilization and Re-integration [DDR] process and you too can have a designer T shirt. Because you’re worth it.

  As leader of the West Side Boys, Kallay felt he was a high flyer among insurgents, for, at the age of twenty-four, he styled himself ‘Brigadier’; as a captive of the British (he had not yet been handed over to UNAMSIL along with the other prisoners en route to the Sierra Leone police) he may well have thought that he made the smart move when he hid in the dawn hours that Sunday morning; now, happy to be alive, Kallay was co-operative with his captors. The three Land Rovers of the Royal Irish patrol had been retrieved and air-lifted out when the operation was being wrapped up, but two of the vehicle-mounted radios had been removed by the West Side Boys and were still in Gberi Bana. Kallay told his captors where they were located.

  About ten days after the raid, intelligence reports indicated that Gberi Bana had been abandoned by the remnant of the rebels. The Air Wing gunship took off with Fred, forsaking his bright coloured civilian shirt, wearing British army issue DPM (destructive pattern material) that Britain supplied for the Sierra Leone army and four SAS men who had been on the operation. Their flight path was along the course of the Rokel creek. They circled Gberi Bana, which seemed deserted from the air. However, there was the risk of diehards in the area. This time it was not a case of fast-roping down; if something went wrong, there was no back-up, the gunship would have to touch down to extricate them. Neall Ellis brought down the Mi-24; the soldiers and Fred, carrying his GPMG, jumped down, and immediately Neall took-off. He orbited overhead while the others stayed on the ground. The place was indeed deserted; and the radios were located. Fred described his response not to the sight but the feeling he had: ‘eerie, knowing that many lives were sacrificed here.’

  Operation Barras turned out to be a watershed: as far as the West Side Boys were concerned the former AFRC leader, Johnny Paul Koroma, to whom they had looked at one point for leadership, said of them, ‘With the attack from the British (to rescue British military hostages) I think that is over now’;22 as for the wider rebel movement, bereft of charismatic leadership, the implications of what happened at Gberi Bana and Magbeni sapped their resolve. Britain also provided a powerful military background presence that boosted the UNAMSIL force in its peacekeeping role; in addition, it deployed a Royal Naval task force in Sierra Leone waters as a gesture of support. And it had taken the lead in piloting through the UN an embargo on Sierra Leone diamonds, thus undercutting the illicit trade in blood diamonds that had fuelled insurgency for years.

  An indicator suggesting that rebel activity was being contained by UNAMSIL is that Fred flew fewer combat sorties for the Air Wing, and instead became more involved in activity concerned with a stable future for the country. He had many meetings with Chief Hinga Norman, or Oscar Lima, as his diary has it – the phonetic alphabet first letters of Old Lion, his cryptic code for the Deputy Minister of Defence. For a while, there was the possibility of work with Ray England, another former member of the Regiment, in training the Sierra Leone police, but it did not come to fruition. At the end of September, Fred went to Mongeri, the home town of Hinga Norman, to the opening of a new school that the Chief had lobbied to have built. Fred supplied the funds and the food for the opening ceremony. But the past was not yet in the past and the training of the CDF continued. They watched a passing out parade of recruits; the drill was done using sticks, and the formation movements were carried out without spoken commands. It was impressive. Some UN observers attended, but Hinga Norman told them not to bring their weapons into the chiefdom, the war was over.

  In its aftermath, there would be a bleak future for those had suffered most from the ravages of a brutal insurgency war, especially the young. There were the young boys that the RUF traumatized into becoming killing automatons in the Small Boys Unit, who, as Rudi Bruns felt when he was their captive, had lost their childhood. And there were the victims of terror, the amputees and the orphans. What would be their future?

  Aminatta Forna, in her fine book, The Devil that Danced on the Water, describes the plight of Mohammed and Salamatu, two young amputees who had married shortly before the rebels struck. They lived in Makeni. When the rebels attacked, they cut off his feet, and abducted his wife. She tried to escape from them and they hacked off her feet above the ankle. Now she was ashamed to go out, and would not wear crutches. And a baby had just been born to them.

  She was not more than about twenty: skin unblemished, hair woven into neat braids. Salamatu and Mohammed must have made a striking pair on their wedding day, it occurred to me. She sat with her legs stretched out in front of her and inadvertently I glanced down. As I did so I saw she made a move to pull her lappa across her legs, but not before I had seen the horror that contrasted with the serenity of her face. These were not neat amputations performed by a surgeon’s knife. One foot had been sheared off below the shin, the other sliced diagonally across the ankle bone. The skin around the wound was rough, the flesh chapped and grey – the appearance was more of hide than human skin. Above the missing feet the flesh was thick, dense and splayed as though she had, at some point, tried to walk and the body had compensated by building up layers of tissue. They looked like the feet of an elephant.

  Mohammed retrieved the baby and handed her to me. She was a few weeks old, with skin only the newest babies have: shiny and wrinkled like a fresh leaf unfurling in the early morning.23

  Mohammed had been a panel beater to trade; now he begged for them both and the baby. But he was relatively lucky compared to others like him, for he had won a wheel chair donated by a western charity.

  For the younger victims of the war it would be harder. Hinga Norman discussed so
me ideas with Fred. ‘I suggested for us to set up a fund and call it “The Norman Foundation for War-Affected Children of Sierra Leone”, namely the orphans, amputees, handicapped and the blind.’ Hinga Norman liked the idea but he pointed out that neither of them had the money to set up a foundation. Profits from a security company was the idea Fred came up with, but then he was given the chance of a short-term contract which put him in touch with people who had money.

  However, at a time like this, the international community, particularly the powerful western nations that had remained on the sidelines (apart from evacuating their nationals each time the rebels attacked Freetown) would now surely channel resources to the greatest priorities and help rebuild lives; national politicians would pull together, setting aside personal aggrandisement and focus on restoring the country to something of its former status. And pigs might fly.

  Part IV

  Chapter Ten

  Last Enemy

  Hinga Norman was an honest leader and a great man. He meant more to me than Nelson Mandela would ever mean to me. Mandela was also a good man, but Hinga Norman, he suffered a great deal.

  Col Roelf van Heerden (formerly of Executive Outcomes)

  Elephants, so lore has it, never forget; for a certainty, though, political figureheads who have been outperformed as leaders by a subordinate in a time of national crisis do not; nor do peers who have been eclipsed by a charismatic colleague. When the armed conflict was over and he was returned to office for a second term, President Kabbah’s deft flash of stiletto was intended to finish off Hinga Norman’s political life, but in no way imperil his person: he offered him the post of high commissioner to Nigeria. To a man without wealth, who had endured privations to the point of existing on starvation diet in his fight to restore democracy, the offer must have had its attractions. He and his family would be well-provided for, and he would enjoy the style and trappings that go with representing one’s country. Did he agonize over his decision and discuss in detail with his family his reasons for turning the offer down?

  Not really, but he had been an officer mind you, and he felt that going to become an ambassador was not helping the country; he wanted something that was actually active and hands-on to help the nation.1

  Confidential though such soundings out are supposed to be, rumours get around. Besides, a special envoy from Nigeria was airlifted from Lungi to Freetown by helicopter in which Fred was a crew member. So Hinga Norman touched on the subject with him.

  Normally the Chief and myself would walk on the beach; usually the beach was empty, nobody there, we could sort of meander and the driver would be driving along the road while we walked along the beach. And we were talking and he said to me this day, ‘Fred do you know that they wanted me to go to Nigeria as the high commissioner?’ I said, ‘Yes I heard sir.’ He said, ‘Of course, you heard.’

  The reasons he gave Fred for his declining the job developed along the same lines as his family deduced: he felt that he could better serve his country at home. On that basis he was given the government post of Minister of Internal Affairs; and he shifted his energies on to this new remit, unaware that he was being set up.

  Until, in a nightmare, he saw danger emerging.

  I had a dream − President Kabbah said he was tired of my business, he was therefore going to get rid of me. He drew a machete from the sleeve of his gown to strike, but before he could, I automatically woke up.2

  But, when Hinga Norman wakened, the nightmare still continued: he was in solitary confinement in prison, indicted as a war criminal.

  A Kafkaesque coil began to encircle him at his desk in the Ministry of Internal Affairs on the morning of 10 March. President Kabbah allegedly phoned to speak to him, for no other reason, it seemed, than to establish that he was in his office. Shortly after putting down the phone,

  I was arrested in the Ministerial Office of Internal Affairs and led away in HANDCUFFS (as a Minister of the SLPP Government) to the Cell of an old SLAVES’ DUNGEON in Bonthe, on the 10th of March, 2003, on the orders of a Judge of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, His Honour Justice Bankole Thompson, who signed the single Indictment against me, dated 7th March 2003 and on which Indictment I was held in very deplorable and inhuman conditions for a considerable period of time before I and others were transferred to the present Special Court Detention Facility in Freetown, where I am still being held awaiting Trial and being forced to use a Plastic Bucket in the Cell for toileting purposes at night.3

  The statute for the Special Court was set up by agreement between the United Nations and the government of Sierra Leone to consider responsibility for violations of human rights and crimes against humanity since 30 November 1996, the date of the Abidjan Accord. Another institution with a short-term time scale was established to complement it, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. ‘These two institutions were to employ different procedures and, to an extent, different objectives in the hopes of achieving peace, justice and reconciliation.’4

  An American military lawyer, David Crane, was appointed Chief Prosecutor for the Special Court. Matching the sharpness of perspicacity of his president, who had identified an axis of evil on a world scale, he announced that,

  This is the most black-and-white, good-versus-evil situation that I have ever seen in 30 years of public service.5

  But then, however, before the indictments, the clarity of focus dimmed: he would bring in members of the CDF as well as the rebels. Peter Penfold commented,

  Crane said at the time that he felt that he had to be seen as even-handed in his indictments − rather like a referee, having red-carded a footballer for a brutal tackle, sending off a member of the opposing team in order to keep the sides even.6

  And indeed the pattern of violations by alleged perpetrators show the massive imbalance among the combatants: the RUF plus an unidentified group of rebels account for almost 70%; the AFRC almost 10%; the Sierra Leone army almost 7%; the CDF almost 6%; a category termed unknown 5%; and ECOMOG almost 1%.7 The broad-brush approach to indictments was in keeping with a what-we-say-goes hegemony that Peter Penfold came across early on.

  My view on the Special Court was this was the western world appeasing their conscience for not having done anything in the first place, and I specifically said to Crane − and this is in relation to fighting − , ‘As a result of what you’ve just done, and if there is any trouble, you’re going to be one of the first people to jump on a UN helicopter and get out of here, leaving us again to pick up the mess.’ I really felt very angry about that. There were too many people who came in 2000 and afterwards who had not been there before, had no idea what we’d all gone through before; we’d gone through one helluva lot, and it had been a real struggle, and there had been a lot of sacrifices, and what we were handling was a very delicate sort of peace and democracy. And then these people suddenly fly in from around the world who had no idea about what had happened, and were imposing all their concepts of what constituted justice and democracy.8

  From the start, statements by Special Court officials did not always meet their face value: misinformation, disinformation and fact were co-mingled. On the day that Hinga Norman was arrested, Special Court Registrar, the Briton, Robin Vincent, ‘disclosed that Hinga Norman would be held in a country outside of Sierra Leone.’9 In reality, he was already on his way to a cell in Bonthe. And, as to the scope of the Special Court, Prosecutor David Crane intoned,

  No one − no one − is above the law, regardless of their power, stature or wealth. It must be seen that justice is open, impartial and fair.10

  High ideals − let justice be done though the heavens fall. Except it was not true. The land of the free, home of the brave had just made sure that its citizens would continue to enjoy their liberties by exempting them from the powers of the Special Court. Having already withdrawn from participation in the International Criminal Court (ICC), the US government was negotiating a bi-lateral arrangement with the government of Sierra Leone excluding its citizens from th
e scope of the Special Court. Ratification in the Sierra Leone parliament was awaited; and a civil rights group, Campaign for Good Governance (CGG) urged the parliament to reject the agreement, which, it said,

  Seeks to reverse recent advances in internal justice and seeks to endorse a two-tier system on international justice – one for US nationals and another for the rest of the world.11

  The political context in which the Special Court was set up was resonant of George Orwell’s satire on totalitarianism, Animal Farm, where the pigs pronounce that all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. Changed days from when the US Chief Prosecutor, Robert Jackson, declared at the Nuremberg war crimes trials after the Second World War,

  If certain acts and violations of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them. We are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.12

  Political finagling behind the scenes shaped the parameters within which the Special Court for Sierra Leone would operate. Only crimes committed after 30 November 1996, the date of the Abidjan Accord, would be considered, but actions by ECOMOG forces, however, would be excluded from consideration. Nor would Foday Sankoh’s responsibility for earlier crimes committed by the RUF before November 1996 fall within the scope of the Court. Peter Penfold pointed out that,

  The US Government’s position in this saga has been somewhat duplicitous. It was the Americans who had encouraged Kabbah to make Sankoh the de facto Vice President as part of the Sierra Leone peace process, against the wishes of the Sierra Leone people, and then scarcely a year later turned around and pushed for Sankoh to be tried as a war criminal.13